Hey, I’m hoping there will be somebody around who might have had a similar experience.
I’ve been hearing a lot that the newer library agent ‘Plex TV Series’ is much better than TVBD at matching TV shows recorded by the Plex DVR feature.
I decided to give it a go.
From my experience, it is still matching a lot of shows with seasons the wrong country etc.
I’m located in Australia.
I have the ‘Certification country’ value set as Australia.
After setting everything up and saving the settings, I rescan all library files and then hit ‘Refresh All Metadata’, but still have the same old issues with it trying to match my TV shows with versions from other countries.
Does the Plex TV Series agent still not have much in the way of a database of Australian TV shows?
Trev
This setting has only an influence on the “age rating” data of shows.
The new agent is feeding from TheMovieDB.org, as well as TheTVDB.com, and IMDb.com
If the Australian version of your show is listed on there, it should be possible to have it in Plex as well.
The thing is to make it clear to Plex, which show you actually have.
Key to that is to adhere strictly to the naming guide for tv shows: https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-tv-show-files/
In some cases you’ll have to resort to the use of actual database ID numbers of either TheMovieDB or TheTVDB. How to include them into the folder names is covered by the above linked guide.
This may be an issue. When Plex records something off of OTA broadcasts with the DVR, it specifically uses an agent that purposefully does not attempt to match the recordings against an online source for shows. The only info Plex has for anything recorded comes from the TV Guide data provided by [INSERT GUIDE PROVIDER NAME HERE]. I think rather than trust the guide data to be accurate, Plex decides to simply take the metadata in the guide at their word, and list each show/episode based on the info given. If you then take the same filenames and foldernames and have a different agent attempt to match them, you are going to end up with (likely) extremely incorrect info.
If you wish to keep the rcordings and have them pull the proper metadata with the agent, I suggest you personally double check the contents of the video match the description given, and then ensure that the episode number matches what is on TMDB/TVDB.
Even then, some shows may not have a TMDB/TVDB entry for them, such as city local news channels.
The contents of this post are based on my own speculation and are accurate to the best of my knowledge. If my interpretation of things are incorrect, I welcome being corrected. If any information I provide could result in harm or damage, do not take anything I say as an actual authority on Plex’s operation or intention.
Thank you both for the prompt replies. The info has been very helpful.
Yep, I’m using a HDHomeRun and Plex DVR to record OTA shows.
Stuff like I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here is recording, then the agent is matching with shows of the same name from other countries.
I use the guide pulled from XMLTV.net for my local area.
If I check on the problem shows in the guide, the programme has a description etc, but it seems that even though there is plenty of info it still does not match with the correct meta data.
I’m thinking that since the sources that TVDB use don’t include my shows, it might just be best not to use the agent at all to match metadata and just rely only on fields contained in the guide.
So I went ahead and tried that. If I choose ‘Personal Media Shows’ as the agent, some meta info such as description (which is in the guide XML file) is still not being populated when the series is selected from the library, even after hitting refresh metadata.
I’m not sure how to go about forcing plex to use those guide fields for the metadata.
Any suggestions?
Here is a sample of the programme taken from my local guide.
<programme start="20230420035708 +0000" stop="20230420053131 +0000" channel="289727auepg.com.au">
<title>I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!</title>
<desc>
In tonight's food trial, celebs visit the jungle library to digest a few classics such as Moby Dick, The Great Ratsby, To Kill a Rottingbird and Lord of the Eyes. They're goinbg to Read It And Weep!
</desc>
<category>Special Interest</category>
<icon src="https://www.fetchtv.com.au/v2/epg/program/324380/image"/>
<episode-num system="SxxExx">S09E14</episode-num>
<episode-num system="xmltv_ns">8.13.</episode-num>
<episode-num system="original-air-date">2023-04-20</episode-num>
<rating>
<value>PG</value>
</rating>
</programme>
-Trev
I don’t have too many issues like that with IceTV. It does happen occasionally, but most things are named well enough in the guide that they match correctly. Without having “Australia” in the name, there are no indications it’s the Australian broadcast, and some other providers, like IceTV, provide TMDB/IMDB/TVDB IDs in their data to help identify the show or movie accurately.
Thanks Dave. I might give Ice a try.
